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Wine: Ancient wonders ripe for revival

The Sunday Times, May 14 2017, 12:01am

Wine lovers tend to talk about the difference between new world and old world, categories that loosely mean wine grown in Europe (old) or Australia, South America and California (new). Although this distinction is helpful, the picture is much more nuanced.

I like to refer to countries such as Thailand and India as the “new new world”, while South Africa can be either new or old. Another region not easily categorised is the eastern Mediterranean, from southern Italy to the Black Sea, which yields a treasure trove of exciting wines; in vinicultural terms, I refer to it as the “ancient” world.

The Romans regarded the wines of the Falernian region, around Naples, as some of their best — I’ve found a fine example from Villa Matilde.…